Aircraft control systems as currently in use particularly on more sophisticated and/or high speed aircraft range from the relatively simple single channel control system to the very complex redundant double fail operate-fail safe quadruplex systems offering continued operation even in the case of failure of one or more control channels. These control systems may be of the fly-by-wire type or of the pseudo fly-by-wire types utilizing hydromechanical logic or electrical logic for failure detection and correction. In almost all cases, the flight control system utilized contains some type of control augmentation system or stability augmentation system as a source of input control signals thereto. In addition thereto, the control system also generates feedback signals which must be utilized in properly controlling the aircraft. Therefore, the overall control system must be capable of receiving and handling various types of input and feedback signals.
Prior art systems of the foregoing type have required that each of the systems be specifically designed and developed to meet the particular requirements of the aircraft and the aircraft control system contemplated by the manufacturer. It is usually also required that each of the components which is to go into the control detection correction system be custom designed for the specific aircraft under consideration. Obviously, such custom design and manufacturing of each individual system requires the expenditure of substantial non-recurring engineering costs and manufacturing costs for each particular design and development of each particular system.
In these prior art systems, it is also necessary for each of the various component parts of the system to be electrically, mechanically and hydraulically interconnected in order to provide the desired operation for which the system has been designed. Such interconnection of the various component parts of the system sometimes creates interfacing problems when a transition occurs from electrical to mechanical or mechanical to hydraulic or electrical to hydraulic or the like within the system. Such interconnection and possible interfacing problems may also result in both short-term and long-term reliability problems. It will be obvious to those skilled in the art that, by custom designing each of the control systems for each of the aircraft as they are designed, the short-term and long-term reliability is dependent upon the particular design employed in that particular aircraft and must be approached individually as a separate problem for each of the new custom designed systems manufactured for each of the aircraft.
These prior art systems also necessitate complicated maintenance requirements, each tailored for the specific system and specific aircraft under consideration. Such complicated maintenance requirements may often result in relatively long down-time periods for the aircraft under consideration to permit the appropriate isolation of the problem and correction thereof when the same occurs on the particular control system that has been specifically designed for the aircraft under consideration.